Ebola!

http://www.naturalnews.com/046275_Ebola_victim_air_transport_continental_USA.html
Click the above link for maximum LOLs.

So, there's a lot of fear flying around about this big Ebola outbreak that's going on in west Africa, and it's only gotten worse since the transport of an infected American doctor back to the US. The popular thing seems to be preparing for a massive stateside Ebola outbreak, which, once you learn a little about Ebola, you will see has a laughably abysmal chance of happening. How about we fly some facts back with him?

First, let's start with a question: What is Ebola, anyway? Ebola is a virus, meaning that it requires a susceptible host cell to be 'alive' and replicate, it is otherwise inert in the environment. That also means that Ebola is affected by antibiotics about as much as it is by Benadryl (see also: not at all), as antibiotics only affect bacteria. Ebola has various strains that are recognized by the US CDC, not all of which are pathogenic in people (Ebola Reston). The virus typically arises in human populations due to an introduction from a wild animal, and is classically native to central Africa; though some non-pathogenic strains have been identified in animals from the Philippines. The virus can transmit person to person, but historically, this has always been by fluid transmission, not airborn transmission (airborn transmission has been noted in pigs and monkeys with Ebola Reston). The virus also has a very lengthy incubation period, making it highly susceptible to public health measures like quarantine and isolation. The severe virulence combined with the fact that the virus spreads by fluid contact means that most outbreaks since we started keeping track in the 70's have simply burned themselves out in one hundred victims or less.[1] Note that in the first two outbreaks, the case load was quite severe, in part due to the fact that nobody knew much of anything about Ebola at the time.

Second, what makes Ebola so dangerous? That's a difficult question to answer, because the exact mechanism of the hemorrhagic part of the hemorrhagic fever isn't known yet, at least to my knowledge. Also, some strains are more virulent (cause worse disease) than others. The basic answer, though, is that in some- not all- patients, the virus causes severe internal bleeding, and the patient dies of hypovolemic shock. To an individual, an Ebola infection is a life threatening event. To a population, however, the story is a little different. The outbreak of Ebola Zaire in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leon has been recognized since march. As of 7/28, there have been a cumulative total of 1201 suspected cases and 672 casualties. That's 672/1201= 55% of reported cases resulting in a fatality, which is still pretty awful, but nowhere near the slate-wiping pandemic it's cracked up to be. Also, with 1201 recognized cases, minus 86 at the time of the initial announcement divided by 120 days (four months between march and July at 30 days each, roughly) equals 9.3 new infections a day, assuming that all infections are cases (symptomatic)- which they aren't.[2] This is in countries that don't have average healthcare, good infection control standards, good sanitation, or even good public health or education measures in place. On the 2000 WHO ranking of 191 countries' healthcare systems, Guinea comes in at #161, Liberia is #186, and Sierra Leon didn't even rank.[3]

In general, the spread of Ebola is facilitated by cultural practices that aren't preformed in the first world. Family members, not trained morticians, handle the bodies and prepare them for burial, and many of these people do not have access to the kind of protective equipment or even basic clean running water and soap necessary to prevent exposure of mucous membranes and open cuts to infected bodily fluids. Another reason that Ebola spreads so easily in these countries is in part due to subpar healthcare systems, where healthcare workers also lack basic body substance isolation equipment like disposable gloves, and needles can get re-used among patients. Symptomatic healthcare workers then come into contact with other uninfected patients and may transmit the disease to them as well.

Now, to consider the case of the good doctor. He's being flown back in field biohazard containment, and he will remain in biohazard containment for the duration of his disease. We actually have a really good track record of disease containment in this country, and even if Ebola did get out, we'd be able to stop its spread fairly easily with basic public health measures such as isolation procedures and quarantines. As Ebola is not a persistent infection, he should be okay for release back into the public once his symptoms resolve. What if the plane crashes? His body, and his Ebola, would likely be incinerated in the subsequent fire. Even if there wasn't a fire and the plane magically broke apart over Manhattan, it's unlikely that the resulting aerosol would pose a hazard to anyone.

What about terrorists? What about terrorists. It's not like there's an epidemic going on in Africa where anyone could just walk in, find an infected person and walk right back- oh wait, yeah, just kidding. Also, the US isn't the only nation with stockpiles of Ebola, you can believe that the Russians have it too, and they aren't exactly known for incredible security in the early post-soviet era. It's pointless to fret about someone nabbing the doctor here in the US and using him to create a biohazard incident. Besides, if you're afraid, the terrorists win, and that's not an America I want to live in.

Why bother taking him over here? I don't know, maybe because our healthcare facilities are just a little better than what Guinea's got going on. That's just a guess, though.

How do you know if you have Ebola? You don't have Ebola, get over yourself.

Ebola's a zombie virus?! Not even kind of close. The victims are alive until they're dead, and then they stay dead. Nobody gets aggressive, nobody tries to eat anyone, people mostly just lay around and die. The video game series Resident Evil did, however, base their zombie-making T-Virus off of Ebola.

Someone told you they could treat Ebola with colloidal silver. And when did they work in a BSL-4 lab, or treat Ebola in the field? This statement is so full of shit, it could be a septic tank. Save your hard-earned money. There's no evidence to date that colloidal silver would have any effect on Ebola virions in the body, and there are no approved antivirals or vaccines available at this time, though there is one in the works. In fact, there's no peer-reviewed evidence to my knowledge that colloidal silver works on anything at all, except to turn you into a smurf.

So let me lay the cards on the table right here and now: you are a hundred a thousand times more likely to die from the emergence of a novel pandemic coronavirus or pandemic antibiotic resistant pneumonia/tuberculosis than you are to catch some magic superstrain of Ebola that somehow escapes biohazard confinement in Atlanta. Questions, comments, ragemail? Leave it here, or on our facebook page.

[1]http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/Fact_Sheets/Ebola_Fact_Booklet.pdf
[2]http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/guinea/recent_updates.html
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems

Don't fear the NEIDL

The National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL) is a $200 million dollar public health laboratory in Boston, Mass, operated by Boston University. They preform research on multiple pathogens of significant concern to public health, including Tuberculosis, which is a mounting problem in the face of the HIV and antibiotic resistance epidemics. The only problem with their laboratory is that a whole section of it- the Biohazard Safety Level 4 (BSL 4) lab- has never operated in its designed capacity due to multiple legal hurdles the NEIDL had to clear in order to prove that it was safe. First, they were required to prove that their operation was safe, and their security and biosafety measures were deemed effective by an outside company. After that, the NEIDL won a legal suit, in which a judge deemed that their biosafety measures were adequate for safe operation in south Boston. For a better idea of their security and biosafety measures, you can watch a video tour of the BSL-4 facilities at link [1]. At a glance, however, this should give you some idea of their security- if there's a fire, the fire department doesn't get in without being stopped at the gates and individually ID'd and cross-referenced to their list of Boston city firemen. If the power goes out and the negative pressure system fails, all air from the lab is drawn through multiple custom HEPA filters to remove any particulate. On top of the security and engineering controls, the facility operates under the direct supervision of the Boston Public Health, and the CDC.

Now, having cleared all other hurdles, the NEIDL is coming under fire from Boston city council member Charles Yancey, who wants to pass a city ordinance banning BSL-4 research. After all, who wants that sort of research going on in their back yard? What if there's a release? Of course, this sort of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) fails to account for other sites, such as the CDC campus in downtown Atlanta, that have successfully operated BSL-4 facilities for years without a single problem. In fact, there are six BSL-4 labs in operation across the country right now, with seven more planned or under construction, with no reportable incidents yet. In fact, with about 3,000 Americans dying every year from foodborne illness, you're roughly 3,000 times more likely (more than that, since the number of BSL4 releases in the US is actually zero, not one) to be killed by a pathogen from your local fast food operation than you are to be killed by some exotic disease that somehow managed to slip through the NEIDL's biosafety measures. [3][4]

What's more is that Mr. Yancey is calling for this ban without accepting multiple offers on the NEIDL's part to give him a tour. So, the next question is, could Mr. Yancey actually succeed here? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. In 2002, shortly after the 9/11 attacks and Anthrax bioterrorism incidents, UC Davis attempted to get permission to build a BSL-4 laboratory. This attempt was subsequently rejected by the community, and the attempt was shut down for little more reason than unfounded fear, much like the situation in Boston. [5]

So what do we lose if the NEIDL is shut down? We lose out on another BSL-4 facility that could preform vital, life-saving research on emerging and clinically important pathogens in a safe setting. If we already had two dozen of these labs, it wouldn't be too big of a deal, but the fact is that we've only got six in operation now, so a seventh lab could actually mean a significant increase in clinical progress in treating globally important infections. Tired of big government waste? You're looking at it right here- a multimillion dollar public health lab being threatened because some politicians think these viruses are scary, not for any reason that's evidence based. So, what can you do? You can share this article with your friends (PLEASE share, if you ever share one of my articles, let it be this one), spread the word about what's going on in Boston, and sign this petition. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/let-the-bsl-4-lab-open

Together, we can save the NEIDL. Together, we can save SCIENCE!



[5]http://daviswiki.org/Biosafety_Level_4_Laboratory
[4]http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/cdc-and-food-safety.html
[3]http://www.fas.org/programs/bio/research.html
[2]http://www.bu.edu/today/2014/researchers-cite-experts-findings-of-neidl-safety/
[1]http://www.twiv.tv/threading-the-neidl/